Despite claiming the talk is ''not hurtful'' for him personally, he feels a decision needs to be made on the captaincy - whether it be him or someone else - well before Tuesday's friendly against Costa Rica in Sydney.

''I think it has gone on a little bit too long,'' he said. ''But it's a big topic in our sport, and I guess the one thing we can say is that football has made more headlines in the last couple of months than perhaps a couple of years ago.''

Neill said whoever got the job should treat it with the utmost respect. ''Any player who gets asked if they want to be the captain of Australia should answer, 'It's a dream come true, it's an honour','' Neill said. ''But it's not a game. The captaincy is not something you can just hand around. It's not something that we should just try and vote for. You have got to earn it and somebody has got to give it to you.''

The question over Neill's captaincy largely stems from the question of whether he will be able to compete against the game's best forwards at next year's World Cup.

He has no doubt he is up to the task. ''I'm highly motivated. I obviously feel I've still got things I want to achieve in the game. I still want to be a massive part of this campaign, still want to finish the job and I still want to be one of the 23 that goes to Brazil,'' he said. ''I have personal goals, to try and get 100 games for Australia, get to a third World Cup.

''Unfortunately we've come off two bad results, and that's stirred the pot a little bit and lots of people have started talking.''

Despite being aligned with the past two national bosses, Holger Osieck and Pim Verbeek, Neill said there were benefits to a new coach . ''The change has brought a new level of intensity because everybody is on trial, everybody wants to impress,'' he said.